


Unwritten

by notenoughcoffee



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 03:44:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19034110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenoughcoffee/pseuds/notenoughcoffee
Summary: A journal found on the floor is an open invitation.





	Unwritten

“Catherine, is that your book on the floor?” Anna asked as she entered the living room from the kitchen carrying an oversized bowl of cereal. With her spoon, she was pointing at the book lying near the door to the hallway on the opposite side.

“No. It isn’t mine. I’ll get it before someone trips on it, or worse, Jane sees it in the middle of her floor,” Catherine feigned outrage as she rose from the couch, her faux-indignation turning mildly into genuine irritation when Anna dropped down in the spot she had only just been occupying, crunching loudly on her Cheerios. 

She bent to scoop up the book, but stopped abruptly upon seen the cover of the book.

“Nope. Nuh-uh,” she yelped, backing away from the book as though it might snap at her, shaking the hand that had reached for it as if it actually had. 

“What? What’s happened?”

“I know whose book that is.”

Anna’s concern over Catherine’s initial panic melted away even as Catherine continued to shake her hand. “Okay. I don’t really care who it belongs to,” entirely nonplussed about the situation, she spoke around a mouthful.

“Don’t you recognize it?” Catherine hissed, still very agitated and wiping her hand on her shirt. 

“Erh, no actually. Should I?”

“Yes. Of course you should! It’s Anne’s!”

Anna raised her eyebrows and shrugged a shoulder, perplexed at Catherine’s bizarre behaviour, but not interested enough for her to explain or elaborate. 

“She uses it. You know? To write things in.”

“Oh. Like a diary?”

“Anne Boleyn would never keep a diary. It’s a journal.”

Anna took a breath to argue the semantics of diaries and journals, but thought better of it and closed her mouth around another spoon of cereal. She chewed slowly hoping the conversation would taper off into a comfortable silence. 

It did not.

“We aren’t supposed to know it exists,” Catherine whispered with a conspiratorial glint shining in her eyes.

“You going to read it or something?” Anna inquired, thoroughly enjoying the series of emotions displaying in rapid succession across the other woman’s face. They seemed to range the gamut from utter joy, confusion, anger, and disappointment.

“What do you think she writes about? Do you think we’re in it?” Catherine’s expression settles for a bit on curiosity.

“Probably,” Anna surmised, setting her now empty bowl on the coffee table in front of her. She leaned herself back, kicked up her feet, and closed her eyes. 

“But what do you think she’s said?” Catherine was still staring at the book, as though it might catch fire at any given moment.

“It’s right there. If you want to know that badly, just pick it up and read it,” Anna waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the journal, and cracked one eye open just enough to see Catherine’s form through her eyelashes. She watched as Catherine’s hand seemed to reach out on its own accord before it was snatched away and held tightly to her chest again. 

“Do you think she keeps track of all of her inane ideas in there? Maybe it would be good for us to expect what she’s going to do next?” Her tone was hopeful, as though she were waiting for permission from Anna, and what better reason to sanction such a breach of trust than to be prepared for whatever antics Anne might be getting up to.

Anna shrugged noncommittally. She was already getting bored.

“Do you think she’s met someone? It might be filled with her fantasies about getting with them! Maybe we should read it so we can help her get what she wants?”

“You, better than anybody, know that Anne does not need any help getting what she wants, Catherine.”

“What if she’s written poetry? Really awful poetry with lines like, ‘You’re the only sunshine in my life.’” 

Anna lifted her head and looked at Catherine with a somber expression. “‘But sunshine burns.’”

The terrible line had not been something Catherine had been expecting and it caused her to double over in laughter. “Yeah, something like that or, ‘ She felt paper thin, as if their breath was enough to blow her away to the clouds.’”

Catherine’s joy was contagious and Anna found herself unable to contain her laughter alongside her. 

“Wait! Here’s another, ‘She slept on a mountain of pillows, bones beneath their silk,’” Catherine shrieked tears racing down her flushed cheeks, barely able to form words around her gasps for air. 

“Why are her bones beneath the silk if she’s sleeping on a mountain of pillows?” Anna guffawed.

“It’s poetry, Anna. It’s not supposed to be literal!” 

Anna restrained herself for a moment, and with composure and calmness that surprised even her said, “‘He was acrylics and she was crayons.’”

“Oh no, that is exactly something that Anne would write,” Catherine wheezed, flopping down roughly next to Anna on the couch.

So caught up in the euphoria of imagined poetic ramblings, they almost missed the sound of the front door being slammed open. Sobering the mood entirely, they both flung themselves into the most casual positions they could physically shape into.

Stomping boots ran through the hallway, past the living room entry, and took the stairs two at a time. A bedroom door was pulled open so violently, they weren’t sure how it still remained on its hinges. The sounds of items hitting the floor as they were strewn about were nearly masked by the incessant stream of cuss words emanating from the room.

Catherine silently gestured toward the book on the floor and pointed at Anna.

Anna wildly shook her head and pointed at Catherine. 

Catherine held her hands up pleading first Anna and then God to make a miracle happen and somehow move that journal somewhere that wouldn’t incriminate either of them.

Before a solid plan could be made and enacted, the boots were once again on the stairs, pounding out their descent so loudly that Catherine was sure plaster was going to start falling from the walls.

  
The fun was officially over, and Catherine lamented the lost opportunity to read some of Anne’s terrible poetry for herself.

***

“How did this get there?” Anne bellowed as she entered the room spotting the journal immediately in the middle of the floor.

“How did what get where?” Catherine looked at her innocently.

“My journal. How did it get on the floor?”

“You must have dropped it or something. I hadn’t seen it,” Anna said almost too kindly.

Anne regarded them with suspicion, clutching the book to her chest and breathing heavily. She narrowed her eyes and tried to read through the masquerade the others were putting on. 

Deciding that the worst could already have happened, Anne backed out of the room without taking her line of questioning any further. She climbed the stairs again, stepping over the entire contents of her wardrobe on the floor, and found the notes she needed inside the journal.

After ensuring the door was closed and locked, she turned her radio on so she could make a call in secret.

“Hi, yes hello, I have a booking for you to cater a party and I was just calling to confirm the final number.”

Anne could still feel her heart hammering in her chest at the thought that she had almost lost all of her plans for the celebration she was planning for Catherine. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks Krispy and Hannah for the direction in this one.


End file.
